Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors are planned for shut down by 2025 and replaced with renewables, energy efficiency, and storage. PG&E says renewables less expensive. Thanks to Friends of the Earth for helping to make California nuclear free after success helping with San Onofre shutdown. More…

California historically imported significant amounts of electricity, since its wholesale power markets in the region are relatively open and generation from outside the state is often less expensive. Some power plants located in adjacent states are partially owned by California utility companies, and special agreements exist for exporting power to California. For instance, 18% of the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant, located in Tonopah, Arizona, is owned by California-based utilities. See San Onofre nuclear outage contributes to Southern California’s changing generation profile – EIA November 2012.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, EIA Forms 923 and 826.Note: California’s electricity imports were estimated by subtracting total in-state generation from the EIA Form 826 from total in-state generation from the EIA Form 923. Renewable energy in the chart includes: wind, photovoltaic, geothermal, and biomass.

Energy Saving Tip

Use the SMUD Vampire Load Calculator to see savings from items that are turned off but still plugged in. Note: SDG&E rates are about $0.38 per kWh at the higher end, which is where you will save. SMUD’s calculator maximum is $0.30, so set the calculator kWh to $0.19 and then double the amount for actual savings.See more energy saving tips below.

In spite of this, the 2015-2016 ISO Transmission Plan assumes Diablo Canyon will not be shut down. It assumes the license will be renewed and the once-through cooling non-compliance will be resolved or ignored. Page 46:

Most of the electric power generated by Diablo is exported to other areas (Kern Area and Central Coast and Los Padres Areas.

The Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) referenced on the above Table includes other Western states and countries. California uses nuclear energy from Arizona’s Palo Verde nuclear power plant. See map.

“The study results from various studies show that there are no thermal overloads, voltage or stability concerns related to the SONGS [San Onofre] units under normal or emergency conditions. Following plots for two of the most severe contingencies and for a sudden loss of load demonstrate that there are no stability concerns related to SONGS units.” [Page 155]

Non-nuclear once-through cooling (OTC) power plants will be shut down first as the 33% renewables come on-line. The OTC nuclear power plants will remain on-line. [Page 274]. [See also CAISO Once-Through Cooling Generation.]

The study results from various studies show that there are no thermal overloads or transient stability concerns related to the SONGS units under normal or emergency conditions. In 2021, SONGS G-2 [both reactors off-line] contingency results in post-transient divergence. This can be mitigated by increasing generation in the LA Basin. The ISO has historically addressed this concern by maintaining minimum generation dispatch requirements in Southern California in accordance with the SCIT Nomogram. No additional mitigation is considered necessary other than periodically updating and following established minimum generation requirements.

The following plots for two of the most severe contingencies and for a sudden loss of load demonstrate that there are no stability concerns related to the SONGS units. [Page 195]

The California ISO 3/22/2012 News Release states “…if both SONGS units remain offline this summer, San Diego and portions of the Los Angeles Basin may face local reliability challenges.” It then states “Fortunately, there are resource options available to help mitigate reliability risks.” The 3/22/2012 briefing by ISO’s Neil Millar addresses the mitigation options and proves there are adequate mitigation options to cover high peak demand and thus avoiding rolling blackouts this summer.

San Onofre’s two reactors have been shut down since January 31, 2011 due to critical equipment problems. There have been no resulting blackouts or brownouts in Southern California. The electricity grid was able to compensate for this loss.

California has a huge amount of gas plant capacity that’s not running at any time during the day – CA Independent System Operators

Rolling blackouts have not occurred with San Onofre offline

1/31/2012 Radiation Leak: San Onofre has been offline since January 31, 2012 due to a radiation leak from a defective steam generator and decades of premature wear on all four steam generators. There have been no rolling blackouts.SeePrediction of rolling blackouts has not occurred.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved a stipulation and consent agreement among FERC’s Office of Enforcement, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), and the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) that includes a $6 million civil penalty and resolves the investigation by FERC Enforcement staff and NERC into CAISO’s involvement in the Sept. 8, 2011, Southwest blackout.

…Enforcement staff and NERC concluded that CAISO had failed to appropriately monitor the current flow on Path 44, or otherwise take corrective action to avert operation of the intertie separation scheme at the San Onofre nuclear generating plant switchyard. Initiation of the intertie separation scheme contributed to tripping the San Onofre nuclear generating plant offline, and eventually resulted in the complete blackout of San Diego and the Baja California control area operated by Comisión Federal de Electricidad…

Plans are needed in case of emergency shutdown and to prepare for license expiration of the plants. Their plan is to continue relicensing these old plants. The plants were originally designed for a lifespan of 40 years or less. San Onofre licenses expire in 2020. Diablo Canyon licenses expire in 2024 and 2025.

The plant owners have refused to comply with state requests to provide their plan for an alternative energy source prior to relicensing.

Nuclear power is not a reliable source of power, as shown by the months of unplanned shutdown of San Onofre since January 2012.

Percent of power from San Onofre

There are numerous percentages quoted regarding how much electricity San Onofre provides. However, the real question is not how much it provides, but how much it needs to provide. However, for those interested in the percentages, here they are:

SDG&E’s current Power Content Label shows nuclear power provides 16% of SDG&E’s 2010 Power Mix. This may include nuclear power from the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona.

SCE’s current Power Content Label shows nuclear power provides 19% of SCE’s 2010 Power Mix. This may include nuclear power from the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona.

See CEC 2010 Total Electricity System Powerfor details on this and related information, such as other sources of electricity (both in-state and elsewhere). In-state generation is reported generation from units 1 MW and larger.

Cost of Nuclear Power

Reports of nuclear power costing less than other sources of energy needs to be reevaluated in California, especially at San Onofre. For example, the cost analysis to replace the San Onofre steam generators assumed high gas prices. It also excluded the cost of storing tons of toxic radioactive waste for tens of thousands of years as well as numerous other costs. It excluded all energy efficiency alternatives, such as targeted and increased cost incentives to replace residential and commercial inefficient air conditioners and load balancing in the Edison and SGD&E utility districts.

Energy Efficiency

Heating and cooling are almost half of energy consumption, yet rebates are limited or non-existent for heating and air conditioning systems (HVAC).

SCE and SDG&E are given billions of dollars of ratepayer money for energy efficiency programs. SCE currently has about half a billion dollars in energy efficiency funds that must be used by the end of 2012.

California’s concerns about peak energy demand in the summer and carbon emissions can more effectively be addressed with more aggressive incentives and programs for central air conditioner replacements — especially in the area served by the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

SCE and SDG&E offer residential customers no rebates to upgrade to more efficient central heating and cooling (HVAC) systems. They only offers rebates on installation costs for new air conditioning systems. The number of contractors to choose from is limited and there are other hurdles that make this program less attractive. The information is difficult to find on SDG&E’s website. They send you to a vendor website for information, without mentioning the amounts of rebates possible for installation.

California Mandates 33% Renewable Energy by 2020

California requires utility companies to increase the percentage of renewable energy in the state’s electricity mix to 33 percent by 2020.

This process should be expedited, with nuclear energy being the first replaced with renewable energy. However, theISO Transmission Plan(page 274) uses renewables to replace gas plants instead of California’s nuclear plants.

Southern California Edison stalls solar projects for years

Millions of dollars in renewable energy projects intended to provide power to facilities in California’s national parks and forests have been sitting idle for years because of Southern California Edison.

There’s 24-plus systems in the Southern California Edison area that have been installed in the last three years that we have not been able to negotiate an interconnection agreement on,” said Jack Williams, who retired this month as the National Park Service’s Oakland-based regional facilities manager. “We think we are close at times, but then nothing. We were successful with PG&E, but with Southern California Edison…. They have been a bit more difficult. We’ve raised the flag many times. It’s an issue for all federal agencies.”

California Solar Initiative – Solar Rebates

Macy’s solar rooftop – Irvine, CA

The California Solar Initiative (CSI)is the solar rebate program in California for customers of investor-owned utilities – PG&E, Southern California Edison and SDG&E. The CPUC is providing $2.1 billion to businesses, nonprofit organizations, public agencies and homeowners.

San Diego Solar Map

Solar Map displays location of rooftop solar installations in San Diego county and surrounding areas. Data from CSI.

A 2009 Stanford University study ranked energy systems according to their impacts on global warming, pollution, water supply, land use, wildlife and other concerns. The very best options were wind, solar, geothermal, tidal and hydroelectric power—all of which are driven by wind, water or sunlight (referred to as WWS).

Nuclear power, coal with carbon capture, and ethanol were all poorer options, as were oil and natural gas. The study also found that battery-electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles recharged by WWS options would largely eliminate pollution from the transportation sector.

To ensure that our system remains clean, they considered only technologies that have near-zero emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants over their entire life cycle, including construction, operation and decommissioning. For example, when burned in vehicles, even the most ecologically acceptable sources of ethanol create air pollution that will cause the same mortality level as when gasoline is burned. Nuclear power results in up to 25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy, when reactor construction and uranium refining and transport are considered.

About the Authors

Mark Z. Jacobson is professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program there. He develops computer models to study the effects of energy technologies and their emissions on climate and air pollution.

Mark A. Delucchi is a research scientist at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis. He focuses on energy, environ¬mental and economic analyses of advanced, sustainable transportation fuels, vehicles and systems.

Nuclear Power in France: Setting the Record Straight

France gets nearly 80% of its electricity from its 58 nuclear reactors. However, such a heavy reliance on nuclear power brings with it many major, unresolved problems most especially that of radioactive waste. As a result, France has a hugely complex and unsolved radioactive waste problems, as well as health, environmental, and financial problems.

Like the United States:

France has not solved its nuclear waste problem.

French nuclear power has been costly to taxpayers.

French reactor technology is aging and unsafe.

French reactors, and reactor construction projects, are unreliable.

The French do not all love their nuclear power.

France’s nuclear power has produced serious health and environmental problems.

Thorium “fuel” has been proposed as an alternative to uranium fuel in nuclear reactors. There are not “thorium reactors,” but rather proposals to use thorium as a “fuel” in different types of reactors, including existing light-water reactors and various fast breeder reactor designs. Contrary to the claims made or implied by thorium proponents, however, thorium doesn’t solve the proliferation, waste, safety, or cost problems of nuclear power, and it still faces major technical hurdles for commercialization. See Fact Sheet by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and Physicians for Social Responsibility.

AP1000 Nuclear Reactor

The new AP1000 nuclear reactor has serious design flaws. On a 4 to 1 vote, the NRC Commissioners approved building this in Georgia, even though numerous problems exist with the design and lessons learned from Fukushima have not been implemented. Vogtle nuclear plant now under construction in eastern Georgia.

The AP1000, as well as other new reactor designs, use high burnup fuel. High burnup fuel waste is so dangerous, the NRC will not approve a transportation container for it and will only approve 20 years of dry storage for it. More…

George ratepayers are required to pay for the construction of this plant before it’s even built, with no guarantees it will be successful.

Several advanced reactor concepts are intended to operate for extended periods between outages. For LWRs, outages are scheduled every 18–24 months for refueling but several advanced reactor concepts are intended to operate with much longer periods between refueling. The Toshiba 4S concept, for instance, is designed to operate up to 30 years without refueling (Tsuboi, Arie, Ueda, Grenci, & Yacout, 2012). The SSTAR is another advanced reactor concept with targeted operation periods of 15 to 30 years between refueling activities (Smith, Halsey, Brown, Sienicki, Moisseytsev, & Wade, 2008). Several other reactor concepts such as the liquid fuel MSRs and pebble bed-type VHTRs may have the capability to refuel while operating. Thus, it will be important that PHM systems for AdvSMRs are capable of utilizing data obtained from on-line measurements as well as data collected during outages…

3.1. Sensors and Instrumentation for Condition Assessment of Passive Components

Because opportunities to perform inspections and maintenance of passive components when the plant is offline will be limited in many designs, there is a need to monitor risk-significant passive components during plant operation for degradation. In addition, there is a need to monitor the stressors (time at temperature, fluence, mechanical loads, etc.) that are expected to contribute to degradation of these components. Requirements for sensors and instrumentation (whether for on-line or off-line condition assessment or for stressor monitoring) include: • Ability to tolerate the harsh operating conditions in AdvSMRs. • High sensitivity, to ensure that reliable measurements from earlier stages of degradation are possible. • Capability to quantify the amount of degradation from the measurements…

6. CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSIONS

PHM for passive components in AdvSMRs can play a key role in facilitating the deployment of AdvSMRs by minimizing controllable day-to-day costs associated with plant O&M. Although potential concepts and designs for AdvSMRs vary significantly, there are some general features that can help define the requirements of a PHM system for passive components. Degradation may be sampled in AdvSMRs through online and offline measurements. A PHM system is likely to be most effective if prognostics algorithms can use both types of measurements. A basic illustration is provided of a prognostics method based on the PF technique for predicting passive component failure due to thermal creep degradation. The illustration simulates sampling of creep degradation with offline NDE measurements. The illustration only represents the start of prognostic algorithm development as additional functionality to address many the requirements in Section 3 will need to be demonstrated. The approach is to alternately add functionality and demonstrate that added functionality with accelerated aging studies.